The Humor of Pride and Prejudice

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The Humor of Pride and Prejudice

Of all the novels that Jane Austen has written, critics consider Pride

and Prejudice to be the most comical. Humor can be found everywhere in the book;

in it's character descriptions, imagery, but mostly in it's conversations

between characters. Her novels were not only her way of entertaining people but

it was also a way to express her opinions and views on what surrounded her and

affected her. Her novels were like editorials. Austen uses a variety of comic

techniques to express her own view on characters, both in her book and in her

society that she lived in. We, the readers are often the object of her ridicule,

and Austen makes the readers view themselves in a way which makes it easy for

the reader to laugh at themselves. She introduces caricatures and character

foils to further show how ridiculous a character may be. Pride and Prejudice

has many character foils to exaggerate a characters faults or traits. Austen

also uses irony quite often to inform the readers on her own personal opinions.

The comic techniques caricatures, irony, and satire, not only helped to provide

humor for Austen's readers, but they also helped Austen to give her own personal

opinion on public matters.

When an action is exaggerated on stage by an actor, it becomes all the

more noticeable to the audience. An author can exaggerate a character in order

to make fun of them. Austen exaggerates many of her characters and therefore

makes caricatures of them in order to emphasize their ridiculousness. Mrs.

Bennet is such a character. Her extremely unpleasant manner and reactions

causes readers to delight in the situations which Mrs. Bennet places herself

into. Mrs. Bennet's harsh tongue and simple mind causes the reader to laugh,

because it is so exaggerated that the reader thinks that such a person cannot

exist. Mr. Collins is another exaggerated character in the novel. But would

such characters seem humorous without somebody to react to them? Not at all.

Such exaggeration works only when you place them besides another character who

seems very real. Mrs. Bennet is placed besides her husband to make her look

all the more ridiculous and Mr.

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